


precious things

by therentyoupay



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Kwami Switch, Aged-Up Character(s), Drabbles, F/M, Ficlets, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6616663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien stares at the wall before him, thinking of the seven million embarrassing, mortifying stories that the kwami of Destruction could possibly share with the woman of his dreams—should laziness should not prevail. But which is stronger: the confidence between kwami and Chosen or Plagg’s filterless sarcasm? Would he be amused by telling a tale or two, or would he not find it worth the effort? (Did Plagg miss Adrien as much as he missed <em>him</em>, the stinky little fur ball? Was he still asleep? Did civilian-Ladybug have enough cheese in her house? <em>No one does</em>.)</p><p>And maybe Ladybug would be tempted to give into curiosity about Chat Noir, too… Maybe she'd try to glean hints or clues without breaking her vow of privacy? But what would she ask, and again: what would Plagg <em>say?</em></p><p><em>So much power to destroy</em>, pales Adrien, <em>in one so tiny.</em></p><p> </p><p>— Or: in which an akuma's negative energy tries and fails to swap out a certain set of Miraculous stones, and instead something else gets exchanged entirely. { Ladrien, pining!Adrien } <strong>Prompt:</strong> Accidental kwami switch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Adrien & Tikki (Or: Positive Reinforcements)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roarlikethunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roarlikethunder/gifts).



> _4/21/16_. Yes, another one. Blame Rina, because her prompts are always SO GREAT. 
> 
> **BETA'd** by the ever-patient and insightful and helpful **ABIGAIL**.
> 
> [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com).

 

 

* * *

**precious things**

* * *

 

 

 

**adrien & tikki**

* * *

( _positive reinforcements_ ) 

 

 

 

 _"Let's see how you like it,"_ the Transposer warns, kind eyes made malicious with glowing ultraviolet. _"When your precious things get swapped.”_

Chat Noir doesn’t understand what the akumatized villain (no— _victim;_ no— _agent_ ) means: their miraculous items are _items_ , yeah, technically, but… they’re magic. That’s the point. They can’t just be _summoned_ or _switched_ like the latest akuma-bearer is trying to imply, or else Hawkmoth would have been out of a job a long time ago.

But there is a sinking feeling in his gut as the Transposer flickers out of sight, soon replaced by some precious string of jewels summoned from the depths of some unseen security safe however many miles away, with nothing else but a snarl of a laugh and a vengeful gleam to remember him by.

“Huh,” says Chat, to lighten the mood. “Guess I should hide my stash of cheese.”

Ladybug thinks he’s kidding.

 

//

 

Seven hours later, Chat Noir detransforms into Adrien Agreste, still one purified-akuma shy of a Great Day. Ladybug had looked deep in thought when they parted outside the Louvre, and he knew she was taking the lack of closure particularly hard despite his attempt to reason with her. Not all akumas could be spawned and defeated in the same day anymore—especially not Hawkmoth’s most recent batches. (Seriously, doesn’t that guy have anything better to do?)

The point is that there really isn’t much else the two of them could do to stop an akuma at three in the morning on a weeknight, superheroes or no. It’s a truth that Adrien has learned the hard way over the past two years, and, for Ladybug’s sake, he really hopes that she starts to recognize it, too. He thinks of the shadows beneath her eyes, the drag to her step. _And soon_.

Adrien presses the heels of his palms to his eyes.

He lets himself stay like to for a while and, in a fit of unexpected sensitivity—so does Plagg.

 _Bright side_ , he reminds himself: Ladybug’s playfulness is showing itself more and more all the time, and he thinks he’s finally got a solid argument for why they should hang out more in the suits. (It may or may not have something to do with the conference lecture he sat in on with his father and Nathalie about proposing alternative sales pitches; his father thought it was one hundred and seven percent ‘ _absolute drivel’,_ of course, but if any of the key points give him even seven percent more of a chance of earning a pseudo-date with his Lady—then he will take it.)

“You spend too much time thinking about Ladybug,” says Plagg, yawning.

Adrien shoots a mild glare. “You spend too much time thinking about new combinations for Camembert.”

“I _like_ Marinette’s danishes, okaaay?”

Adrien does too, but that’s beside the point. “I can’t help it if I want to spend more time with her,” he reasons, because as long as he doesn’t delve _too_ deeply, it actually does still sound pretty reasonable. “You let me worry about my partner, and I’ll let you worry about your recipes.”

“Worrying is too much work,” Plagg decides, and flits and sits on top of his computer mouse, which will never be not-funny. “You do it for me.” The ancient creature still spends the following twenty minutes looking up recipes on the Internet.

“All right, Plagg,” grins Adrien, feeling overly fond. “Will do.”

 

//

 

Every day, Adrien is supposed to wake up at precisely seven in the morning. This morning, he actually does.

It is the reason that his heart is promptly gripped by a clawing panic, but it is only the first of many.

“Plagg?” Adrien rubs frantically at his eyes, still disbelieving the alarm clock—Plagg should have disabled it _twice_ by now, at least. “Plagg?” He tries to settle his adrenaline-soaked heart back into a more rational pace. “Did you give up and decide to sleep in the drawers?”

A tiny, tiny yawn greets him from somewhere behind his left ear. When he looks down at his pillows, there is a speck of red and black that looks all too familiar and yet not very familiar at all, but very much the worse for wear. Adrien’s eyes widen. “I…”

The small, ancient creature stretches and shifts, then shudders as if cold, and curls back in on itself—uncomfortable, possibly in pain. Adrien gasps. “Are you—?”

It’s clear—it’s been clear from the moment he set eyes on her, even though Adrien still doesn’t believe it—that this tiny thing is a kwami, that it is a kwami that very likely belongs to _Ladybug_. That it is a small and tiny and knowledgeable and infinitely wise being that has spanned the lifetimes of hundreds of miraculous Ladybugs in all parts of the world, that it is possibly _hurt_ and _lost_ and that Ladybug has been separated from her _powers_ , and where is _Plagg_ , _please let him be okay, please let him be safe with Ladybug,_ _is he all right?_ He frowns, deep and strained and too close to the line of _your kwami is gone, you should panic now_ , except that’s not very helpful and _what would Ladybug say, if she heard you thinking like that_?

“A-Adrien?”

“Hey,” he says, as soothing and as bright as can be while holding her frail little body afloat. “Are you all right?”

“I’m—where is…? So it _is_ you,” she says, and it’s at this point that Adrien realizes something that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but is still something of a shock: Ladybug’s kwami now knows who he is.

Ladybug’s kwami. knows who. he. is.

“You…” The rest of the thought doesn’t seem to want to come out though, not yet. “Where is Plagg? Is he all right? What happened to you?”

“I… I’m all right,” and she does a backflip, apparently just to confirm. She’s already twice as exuberant as Plagg, so Adrien can only imagine how _he’s_ faring. But he’d really rather just know.

“And Plagg? Is he—?”

“Safe and sound!” the kwami chirps, _beaming_. She’s covered in dust or dirt but looks very, very satisfied. The resemblance is not limited to the spots and the flips, or so it would seem. “I can feel it! Annoyed, perhaps, but he's in good hands.”

“Ladybug?” Adrien asks, his thumping heart spiking with either anticipation or excitement or greed—it is a distinctly common feeling in a morning that is anything but. “He's with Ladybug?”

The kwami does another round of double backflips. She’s so clearly proud, it’s contagious, and also—a little disorienting? “Something must have gone wrong with the Tranposer’s attempts at summoning the Miraculous! Silly Hawkmoth. He should know by now that the Miraculous simply can't be _summoned._ This must be the result of whatever he tried to do to exchange for your stones,” she explains, meanwhile Adrien’s head is still reeling. “There are only a few things in the world that can compare to the value of a Miraculous stone, and there are very few things that are more precious to a Chosen than their kwamis.” Adrien looked down the bridge of his nose to his cheek... for the tiny creature was patting it affectionately with her tiny hands. “We must admit, it’s an interesting result! And now it gives us more time to stall!”

“Stall?” Adrien echoes, feeling the warmth that had only just entered his chest start to dissipate. “Against what?”

“Best not to wait and find out,” the kwami winks. The kwami _winks_. Oh, the resemblance is too strong. “Come on! Time to get dressed for school so you can brainstorm a few alternative plans while we wait for Ladybug’s signal.”

“Um… you know,” Adrien runs a hand through the hair at the base of his skull. Definitely bedhead. Definitely the beginnings of a headache. “I don’t really… make the plans. In advance, that is. I just kind of… wing it?”

The small creature pauses. Her blinks are slow, and wide, and pierce through into his _soul_ , in a way where Plagg’s has always seemed to go straight for his brain, or this tiny space inside his chest that opens up wide when Adrien feels like Chat can do _anything._ Or maybe just through to the pocket of his bag where he stores the cheese. Tikki blinks at him.

“You are… certainly Plagg’s Chosen,” she declares, and he’s still trying to parse through that when it occurs to him what she said earlier about the _Transposer—_ before alarm bells started ringing about _stalling_ —in which the kwami mentioned something about Plagg being safe and sound and Ladybug and _switching_ and _oh good goddamn cheese on a cracker_ , Plagg is currently in the arms of _Ladybug_?

The implications filter in.

Adrien stares at the wall before him, thinking of the seven million embarrassing, mortifying stories that the kwami of Destruction could possibly share with the woman of his dreams—should laziness should not prevail. But which is stronger: the confidence between kwami and Chosen or Plagg’s filterless sarcasm? Would he be amused by telling a tale or two, or would he not find it worth the effort? (Did Plagg miss Adrien as much as he missed _him_ , the stinky little fur ball? Was he still asleep? Did civilian-Ladybug have enough cheese in her house? _No one does_.)

And maybe Ladybug would be tempted to give into curiosity about Chat Noir, too… Maybe she'd try to glean hints or clues without breaking her vow of privacy? But what would she ask, and again: what would Plagg _say?_

 _So much power to destroy_ , pales Adrien, _in one so tiny._ The paleness turns faintly green.

“Well… I’m Tikki,” the kwami introduces herself, and is she always so chipper? “We have a busy day ahead of us, so why don’t you go get dressed and ready and I’ll find a way for you to communicate with Ladybug without revealing your identity. Plagg and I can be messengers, just like in the old days! You are going to find a way to get to the bottom of this, I just know it! Your cleverness has gotten you out of worse scrapes before!”

“I… thank you,” says Adrien, who is still very much in bed, with bedhead, at eleven past seven o’clock. “Huh.”

“Come on,” Tikki ushers— _ushers_ —him out of bed, then makes a beeline for his window, “To think! This is where I like to sit in Ladybug’s room, when I can’t sit on her shoulder.” Adrien desperately tries to picture that, but fails. “You’re gonna have to start this one without your powers, but at least there’s a bright side to all of this!”

Adrien makes his bed quickly, but he suddenly feels like he’s back in a daze. “Because… the view of Paris is pretty?” He pauses, wondering about Ladybug’s view from the window that Tikki apparently loves so much, and if this question could be counted as prying.

Tikki giggles. It's strange to hear so much delighted laughter, especially when it’s not just excitement about cheese, either.

“Well, yes! But I also meant that I get to spend the day with _you!_ ”

Adrien feels himself growing stupidly shy. It _is_ a nice thought.

He is about to respond with the contented reminder that Plagg is with their Ladybug too, until: _It's more than that_ , Adrien thinks, stomach suddenly flip-dropping. _He’s with... whoever is_ behind _the mask_ and what do you know, _there it is—_ there’s the jealousy that he couldn’t name before, so fresh on his tongue he can taste it.

Tikki is… beaming at him. Wisely.

“We are going to work well together,” she says, with her proud, bright blue eyes. ( _Huh_ , thinks Adrien, on a vague note of interest: _Plagg and I share the same eye color… I wonder if…?_ )

Tikki’s grin widens.

“Yes,” she says, still beaming. “I can tell.”

 

//

 


	2. Marinette & Plagg (Or: Raspberry-Cheese Danishes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I’d have thought of it by now,” Marinette finally responds, and lifts her head to see Plagg—which is pointless, because he’s still trapped in her hair. “It would mean that I were actually doing my job. And I’m not! I’m just sitting here, feeding you cheese!”
> 
> Plagg actually hesitates. “That’s… more common than you might think.”
> 
> Marinette is about to explode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _5/20/16_. It just felt right to continue this one, lol. Here's another quick one-shot, but from the other side of the coin. ♥ (P.S. Guess who graduates tomorrow!!
> 
> I am mostly excited because this time around my Commencement gown includes a Master's HOOD.)
> 
> [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com).

 

 

**marinette & plagg**

* * *

( _raspberry-cheese danishes_ ) 

 

 

Marinette is late for school.

No. But like.

_Really_ late.

“What!” The alarm clock actually falls out of her trembling hands. “This is— _how_?”

She’s already missed the entirety of her first class; the sun is bright and shining and gorgeous, and a fresh breeze roams through the open windows, and _she’s already missed her entire first class_. The street is humming with the sounds of the lives of a couple thousand people, all of whom are somehow living productive, functional, punctual lives. _How!_

The room whirls in a fit of stray and flying shirts, a dash for a fresh pair of socks, a flurry of movement over her missing left shoe. Through her open window, she can hear a small trickle of customers entering the bakery’s shopfront, and her parents greeting them with cheery welcome. 

“This is so bad, _so_ bad,” Marinette mutters around her toothbrush, still hopping on one foot in an attempt to put on her single shoe. With her luck, she’ll probably trip over any second now and swallow the toothbrush whole. “Tikki! How could this happen? I’ve never slept in this late before!” 

Marinette manages to find her book bag—but not the book she needed—and her missing left shoe (even if it had mud on it), and even managed to drop a dollop of toothpaste onto her pristine jacket all the by the time she realized that Tikki had not yet answered her. Marinette paused her gentle dabbing of the stain, toothbrush still clamped determinedly between her teeth, and looked up.

“Tikki?” Marinette calls. A rush of guilt swept over her; she’d been so caught up in her panic and her worry that she hadn’t even wished her kwami good morning, or bothered to see if she was still enjoying her newly-made bed or, you know, actually looked past her own frantic rushing to see where the hell Tikki actually was. “Tikki?” she rounded the corner, glancing to the shelf where Tikki’s empty bed sat. A spike of concern coursed through her, and the stained jacket fell from her hands as her mind raced and snagged on a single horrifying thought.

“No,” Marinette whispered, eyes wide. “…the _Transposer!_ ”

Her hands immediately reach up for—

_Oh thank god,_ she breathes, and lets go of her earrings, and then the room erupts into another fit of chaos.

“Tikki!” Marinette hisses, ripping off her bed covers and overturning her pillows. She checks under the mattress and looks behind books, glances in her special drawer and sifts through her no longer-organized desk. “Tikki!” she cries, desperation rapidly sinking in.

“Noo…”

Marinette starts at the sudden groan. So… faint? Her eyes dart across the littered floor, back to the mound of blankets and pillows that lay astray in the middle of her room. She takes a tentative step forward— _it could be a trap_ —and then moves faster, crouching at the giant mountain of mess with wary hands and keen eyes and a determined heart. “Tikki?” she asks, then decides that the next step after this should definitely be to remove the toothbrush from her mouth.

There is… definitely rustling movements coming from inside her pillowcase. Small, familiar rustling, made from tiny hands and a tiny head and—

Not Tikki.

A disheartened noise escapes Marinette’s mouth, and she smacks her chin in the rush to cup her mouth—to contain her shock, and also to prevent the disaster just waiting to occur from her forgotten teeth brushing. Marinette stares in awe at the tiny kwami who is _not her kwami_ , at this tiny adorable cat-creature who is— _drooling?_ —taking refuge inside her personal pillowcase, and her first thought is _Are you all right?_ and her second is _Where is Tikki!_ and her third, _Chat—!_

Through muffled fingers and a mouth too full, she demands, “What are you doing in my pillowcase!”

“Nnn,” says the kwami, and then not much else. Marinette stares until, finally, the kwami cracks one eye open. They appraise one another: Marinette with too much toothpaste in her mouth and one pigtail falling out, her ruined jacket left in a heap somewhere on the floor, and this… kwami, of Chat Noir, of Bad Luck and Destruction and Chaos, being woken from a catnap in a highly unexpected location. She assumes.

“You make too much noise,” he declares, and then goes back to sleep.

_I_ — _?_

“Wait a minute!” Marinette scolds, brazenly frustrated, and then almost chokes. A garbled noise of anger trembles out of her, and then she rises in a race for the bathroom sink. “Don’t you go anywhere!” she half-cries with a mouth half-full, then storms back to her mess on the floor. “ _Including_ Dreamland. We have to fix this! Are you all right?”

“Your pillow is comfier,” the kwami yawns, and snuggles deeper inside. He is lost almost completely from view, but she can still hear him snuggling, and she can certainly hear his tiny contented noises. “Not the two thousand thread count of Egyptian cotton,” he notes from his cocoon, as Marinette watches in dumbstruck wonder, “but warmer. Wake me in a few hours.”

_Wake me in a—?_ “Where is Tikki?” Marinette demands, but her brain is already whirling. “Is she with Chat? Are the both of you all right? _Dammit_ —this must be the Transposer’s doing!”

“Mm… Sounds about right,” murmurs the kwami, who is growing suspiciously quiet. Marinette cups her hand and smoothly slides the kwami out from the bottom of the pillowcase, much to his offended dismay. 

“Hey!” she tries to summon him back. “Not now! I need you!”

“Hnnn,” says the ancient being. “You need me to nap.”

Marinette blinks. _Is he hurt?_ she wonders. _Or just lazy?_

“You’ll have plenty of time to nap later,” Marinette assures him with narrowing eyes. Nevertheless, she makes sure to hold the tiny creature gently, with all the same reverence and care and respect that she knows her partner will bestow upon Tikki. It hasn’t escaped her notice that _this_ kwami has yet to fly, and she desperately hopes that it’s just fatigue, or sleepiness, and not anything to do with an unseen injury. “Once you’re back with Chat Noir.”

“Hm. You’re a planner. That’s nice,” The kwami comments, briefly raising its kitten head to look her directly in the eyes. He lies back down. “You’ll figure it out without me.”

Unbidden, Marinette is seized with frustration. “Don’t you care about what’s happening?” she demands, incredulous.  “Are you all right? Aren’t you worried about Chat Noir—or _your_ partner? I am!” 

“What’s there to worry about?” The kwami begins to gnaw on Marinette’s finger, which doesn’t hurt, but it is the last thing she’d expected him to do, so she only watches in astonishment as he tries to nibble her fingertips. “Tikki is _fine_ … She’s with the Chosen Chat.” The kwami lets out a sigh. “Probably living the life… all that food… and those TVs...”

Marinette blinks, rapid and fierce, and quells that feelings threatening to burst from her chest. _TVs?_

“But how do you _know_?” she demands, missing Tikki more than ever. It feels like a piece of her is actually missing, and—if she’s being perfectly reasonable—it’s extremely close to the truth. “How can you know that?”

“Meh,” the kwami gives up on her fingers. Apparently it is too much work. “I can feel it.”

_Deep breaths_. “We need to find a way to switch you back,” Marinette aims for calm, and the wheels in her head quickly start turning. “This is because of the Trans _poser_! I just know it… Agh! I knew we should have handled him sooner!” she hisses, and holds a hand over her eyes. “And now we have _this_ mess, and no solid leads on how to fix it!”

Late for school. Missed her first class, and probably most of her second. What would her parents say, when they saw her come down? Could Alya have covered for her somehow? 

What would Adrien think?

“Hey,” says the kwami, with increasing alarm. This is the most alert she has seen him. “Hey! Enough with the worrying. There is too much worry in this room. It’s irritating my whiskers.”

“There is plenty to worry about,” Marinette gripes, as frustration mixes back into the well of anxiety. “Something disengaged my alarm clock, so my day is completely off, which—okay, this has happened before, easy enough to power through, sure—except there is an akuma still on the loose that we _should_ have purified by now, and I have the sinking feeling that _he_ has something to do with this crazy kwami swap, which means that: (A) he either _knows_ that the Miraculous holders have kwami to begin with, in which case _how_ does he know that we have kwami and what _else_ does he know? Or: (B) he _tried_ to switch our Miraculous Stones with something else, and ended up switching our kwami instead, which, I mean—also how? And plus, more importantly: what might happen if he tries _again_ , and what happens if he decides he’s gotten bored of Miraculous failure and tries to lure us out by attacking Paris instead? Does he know that he swapped anything at all? Does he _know_ that we can’t fight back?”

The kwami is actually watching her with interest. “What makes you think you can’t fight back?”

Marinette shrugs, beleaguered, and tries to feel a little less like she’s grasping at straws. “Well, we can’t, can we? Not as anything more than civilians, which… well, it’s not like we’ve ever _tried_ before, even with our own kwamis—but that’s a gamble for your safety that quite frankly I don’t want the responsibility for.” (Oh, god. She _trusts_ Chat, she really does, but what if he doesn’t have enough cookies at home or he tries to do something drastic or Tikkis is not out in the sunlight enough—) “I have the earrings meant for Tikki, and your Chosen has whatever disguise intended to host your stone, and even if _you’re_ swapped, the stones aren’t swapped with them.” Marinette gestures when the kwami says nothing. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Hm,” the kwami tilts its head to the side. “You’re right.”

Marinette waits for the kwami to continue. Maybe an alternative suggestion, or a pearl of wisdom. “That’s it?” she can’t help but ask. “That’s all the explanation I’ve got?”

“Uh… To be fair,” the kwami begins, which gives Marinette the distinct impression that it’s not actually fair at all, “the current Chat Noir chosen doesn’t really ask for much explanation.”

A feeling sinks in her stomach, so sudden and lurching that Marinette gets a headache from it. “Right. Of course not,” she mutters, a tad too bitter. She supposes, given the partners in question, she really shouldn't be wholly surprised.

The kwami stares at her. It is not a particularly flattering kind of awe. “You worry worse than he does.”

“Why?” Marinette snaps. “Because my worry is real?”

The kwami gives her a strange, long look. 

“You’re a passionate Ladybug,” he says at last, and she’s still trying to figure out if she can take it as a compliment, when he says, “You have a lot of good ideas, and a lot of feelings… and still a lot to learn about Chat Noir.” Marinette blinks, stricken, but then the kwami curls up comfortably in her palm. Again. “Hm. This might be good for you.”

She feels a fight boiling up in her; it comes so easily now, this adrenaline and this boldness—feelings that used to be so elusive, so temporal, so new. These days, the challenge isn’t so much about summoning her bravery as it is quelling it, before it takes a life of its own.

A deep sigh gusts out of her, and the will to fight goes with it. Her back hits the side of her unmade bed with a soft thump of finality, which feels suspiciously like defeat, and Marinette ends up contemplating the empty wall space around her room. A tiny heartbeat thuds in her cupped hands. 

“Sorry,” she says softly. “It’s no excuse, but… I _am_ worried.” About the Transposer’s antics. About Paris. Tikki. _Chat_.

“They’ll be fine,” says the kwami, who begins to groom himself. “Tikki will set my Chosen straight… I hope.”

Marinette frowns, mostly because she cannot stop the swell of hope that rises in _her_ chest; she’s not entirely sure if today is the right kind of day to expect a little extra good luck, no matter how hard she wishes. 

“How do you know?”

He licks his paw. Doesn’t look up.

“I just know.”

Marinette sits in the bright sunlight of her messy room, surrounded by chaos and poor timing and too many feelings, and starts to gently pet the small, soft ears of the tiny creature in her hand. Her heart starts and stops a little, when the kwami starts to purr. 

“Hm,” she agrees. “All right... Guess we’ll give this a try.”

Not like she has any choice.

 

//

 

“Oh,” says Marinette, as it occurs to her that she should probably get a move-on. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even ask—what should I call you?”

“Nyarrgh.”

“That’s… Egyptian?”

“No,” murmurs the kwami. “It’s Plagg.”

Marinette hums. “Plagg...” she echoes, feeling a curious sense of warmth enter her chest. Something faint and friendly and familiar… like a strange sense of impossible deja vu. She does not voice the interesting sound-similarity of the name to the word _plague_. “This is probably a little late, but… It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hmm,” mumbles Plagg, into her skin. “Nice meet.”

She starts to grin, in spite of herself, then releases a forceful huff of breath through her nose. “Yeah, real nice. I’m Marinette, by the way.”

It’s Plagg’s turn to huff. His scoffing little laugh brings a wry arch to her brow. “Please,” drawls Plagg. “I know who you are.”

Marinette blinks, surprised. 

“You… do?”

“This reminds me. Where do you keep the danishes?”

 

//

 

“Okay,” Marinette repeats. She is dubious. “Run this by me one more time.”

The kwami gasps a sigh. “This is too much work! Just go through the roof, climb down the back with the pipeline and vines, and slip under the windows so your parents don’t see!”

Marinette stares at the hatch, contemplating. She contemplates _hard_.

“This isn’t gonna work.”

“Pah!” the kwami spits. He’s still angry that she did not immediately bend to his whim for pastries. “You have no faith!”

“You are practically the embodiment of poor luck!” Marinette counters, with incredible good reason, she should think. “If there’s any chance of this working at all, it is highly unlikely!”

“Your idea was to go downstairs and tell your parents the _truth_! If there is a worse kind of luck in the universe, then I can’t think of it!”

“That is not true! And yeah, okay, so maybe today is not the _best_ day to fess up, especially since I’m going to need to solve this mess with the Transposer later and I won’t have Ladybug’s roof-jumping skills to get me around before my parents come to check-up, but—hey! Stick to the schedule! We have to get going!”

The kwami groans and covers his eyes. “I’m too old for this,” he grumbles. Cries? “My stomach is too empty. My nap was too short!”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “Are you always so grumpy?”

“Only when I’m hungry!” he moans.

“All right, _fine_ , hold on!” Marinette grumbles back, unlocking the latch to the skylight. “I’ll get you some snacks, I promise, I just have to escape first!”

“Bahh!!”

Even through the thick of everything, Marinette sincerely hopes that Tikki and Chat Noir are getting along.

 

//

 

Marinette and Plagg stand in the back-alley behind the bakery (only slightly worse for wear), still as stone, and stare slack-jawed at the chaos unraveling before them.

“Welp,” says Plagg, warily turning his gaze from the screaming crowds (or, possibly, the gaping hole in the school-front, left by the crumbling rubble of what was apparently once the grand hotel’s entrance) and back to Marinette’s disbelieving face. “Guess you don’t have to worry about third period… or any other period after that….That’s pretty good?” He looks uncertain. “Right?”

Marinette groans into her hands.

 

//

 

“Okay,” Marinette paces, back in her room, because now instead of telling her parents the _truth_ about having missed her first three classes, she has truthfully-lied about having to miss the remainder of the day. “ _Okay_. What next.”

“This cheese isn’t very flavorful,” Plagg mopes, nibbling on his spare wedge. He looks terribly morose. “What kind of bakery doesn’t sell cheese?”

“I’m _sorry_ , okay? I will pick some up for you as soon as I can. I just—I can’t take you back out there if I don’t know that I can protect you! Just—hold out a _little_ longer, I swear I’ll make sure you’re energized and fed and ready for Chat’s transformation… just as soon as I figure out what we’re going to do!”

“Hmm,” Plagg muses, swallowing the last of his lackluster cheese snack. ( _Damn,_ scoffs Marinette, _Who knew Swiss could be such a disappointment?_ ) 

“Hmm, what? Did you change your mind?”

“Well, maybe I should mention that... every so often I feel… a tug? Like something is trying to grab me around my middle, and pull.” Marinette’s eyes go wide. “He might be trying to reverse the switch, but apparently the buffoon can’t switch things _back_ …” Marinette’s stomach starts to churn—even harder, when Plagg verbalizes her very same line of thinking, “So until he gets less incompetent, apparently, there’s really no way of us swapping without revealing your identities, huh. He can switch things all he wants, but he can’t switch them back. Isn’t that what made the guy so mad in the first place? Hm. That’s a rather interesting metaphor, isn’t it?”

Marinette’s head spins so fast her eyes fog over.

“So, anyway. It’s been tugging. Like a tugboat.” Plagg pokes her cheek. “Tug-tug.”

“Are you kidding me!” Marinette bursts, and Plagg goes flying. “Why didn’t you _say_ something!”

“Er,” he floats. “Sorry?”

“Bah!”

“Hey!” he practically chirps, cooing with approval. “Now you’re starting to sound like me!”

“Baahhhh!!”

 

//

 

“Hey.”

She feels a poke. 

Marinette does not respond.

“Hey!”

Something lands on her head. It gnaws at her hair.

“Stop! You’re driving me bonkers!” And he sounds it. “If there was something you were supposed to _do,_ then you would have thought of it by now!”

“If I’d have thought of it by now,” Marinette finally responds, and lifts her head to see Plagg—which is pointless, because he’s still trapped in her hair. “It would mean that I were actually doing my _job_. And I’m not! I’m just sitting here, feeding you cheese!”

Plagg actually hesitates. “That’s… more common than you might think.”

Marinette is about to explode.

“Wait! It’s okay! Look,” Plagg slides down her forehead, and latches onto it. “You are making this much harder than it needs to be! You are too hard on yourself, and it’s making things harder for _me_!”

She doesn’t know why she feels so guilty about that, but Marinette sorta does. Feel guilty, that is. “But think of what you’re asking me to do! Just sit around and wait this out? That’s not how my powers _work!_ I supposed to fix this!” she cries, and the words are starting to sound so much like such a broken record that Marinette suspects she actually will, soon enough—cry, that is. Or break. 

“I’m supposed to be the one who cleans up the mess!” she groans, hands on her cheeks. “That’s my job!”

“Marinette,” says the kwami, and his voice sounds so different, so serious, that Marinette actually takes the effort to look at him. It crosses her eyes. “You’re not gonna like this… but the thing to know about bad luck is _perspective_.”

“I _know_ that,” Marinette responds quickly. “I still have bad luck. I mean—not with the important things. I have a loving family and a great home and a relatively safe space and hope for the future and—okay, I’m mostly just clumsy, but _I get it_. I totally get it.”

Plagg shakes his head. “You do,” he says. “And you don’t. But you might.”

Marinette considers him. “Yeah?”

“Think of this happenstance as an… opportunity?”

“Like,” Marinette glowers, “a forced vacation?”

“More like… a _lesson_ ,” Plagg says, curiously, like he’s still testing the words on his tiny tongue. “A chance to dabble with Bad Luck for a change. It could help you in understanding your powers for Good Luck, too.”

Marinette ponders this. She stares at him dubiously. He has begun to pat her nose. “Are you making this up?”

“A dollop,” he glibly replies. “How am I doing so far?”

Marinette snorts. “Fine enough, I guess. I don’t really like it, but… you might have a point. If only because I’m not so sure I have any other choice…”

“Pah. So hard to please, you are. No wonder the boy struggles so much!”

Her eyes widen down at the kwami still glued to her nose. “What?”

“And I didn’t mean _sit around_ , precisely. The cheese shop is out _side_.”

Marinette blinks. “What is it with you and cheese? Don’t you eat anything else?”

“Young child, please,” snoots Plagg, and Marinette leans back in surprise. “I am millennia-old. I think I know the preferences of my palate well enough by now to prioritize my treasured food sources.”

Marinette narrows her eyes.

 

//

 

“You are a very strange Chosen,” Plagg comments, sounding none too pleased. “You fuss worse than a kitten. You are very mysterious. Why am I wearing a blindfold?”

“Just hold your horses,” Marinette tuts, and balances the tray between her hands as carefully as possible while she lowers the trapdoor down with the toe of one shoe. 

“I have no horses to behold.”

“Your whiskers, then,” she sasses, and then sits herself down into her deskchair, directly in front of the space in which she has commanded Plagg to remain seated, while blindfolded, until further notice. “You’ll thank me later. Or right now, even.”

Plagg had already begun to sniff at the air, but when Marinette grabs a nearby spiral-notebook and uses it to waft the scents in Plagg’s general direction, his nose actually carries him airborne. 

“What is this?” he asks. “What are these smells? What have you brought me?” 

And before Marinette has a chance to explain herself, Plagg rips the tiny scrap of fabric from his eyes and stares down at the sample platter she has brought him.

“What is this?” he demands, astounded.

“A sample platter.” Marinette gestures to the feast arranged neatly on the tray. Truffles. Tarts. Coffee cakes. Cake pops. Chocolate bits. Chocolate-covered fruits. Bits of pastries. Danishes. With cheese. “But only _one_ with cheese,” Marinette warns, and it sounds much closer to scolding than she meant it to. “And it comes with raspberry jam. You have to expand your horizons a bit.”

Plagg stares.

“Um… do you like it?” Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. “I can totally go back downstairs and get you other ones, if you’re not into chocolate. I… Tikki loves it,” Marinette explains, past the stupid lump that is forming in her throat, “but I understand if you prefer a more wholesome flavor.”

“No,” says Plagg, with conviction.

Marinette waits. “No?” she echoes finally, oddly disappointed.

“This,” states Plagg. “ _This_.”

“This—?”

And then Plagg eats his way through three sample platters, and four raspberry-cheese danishes (“Why has he never _purchased_ these before!”), and a small cup of hot chocolate in which _he’d actually tried to literally swim_ , the wild cat-creature, and somewhere between the first and second batch of caramel popcorn, Marinette decides that Plagg needs a place to stay.

“So I’m not saying that you’ll be here for much longer,” she begins, popping another small handful of popcorn into her mouth. (When was the last time she ate popcorn? She never eats as many sweets anymore. She usually saves them for Tikki.) “But if you _are_ staying, even for a little bit, you’re gonna need a place for all your beloved catnaps.”

Plagg looks up with a half-eaten cookie dangling from his mouth. “Mm?”

“Like Tikki’s, I mean,” says Marinette, and then she swivels in her deskchair to spread a wide-sweeping gesture in the direction of the little nook on her bed’s shelf, the one that houses and hides Tikki’s personal space. 

“What is this?” Plagg mumbles around a half-bite, zipping closer with enough speed that Marinette follows a good few seconds after. “She has... her own _bed?_ ” 

“Well,” Marinette scratches her temple, and suddenly feels a bit embarrassed. Tikki has a handmade bed, and hand-sewn covers, and a customized pillow. Marinette made it herself. “She usually sleeps with me, anyway. But for naps and things, you know? Like when I’m busy with homework and stuff. Non-Ladybug things. Sometimes.”

Plagg places a paw on the polka-dotted bedspread… it’s only a few inches wide, and it’s spotted, but it’s more than that. It’s so indubitably Tikki’s.

His paw lingers.

Something clenches at Marinette’s chest, fierce and crushing. _She’s his partner_ , Marinette thinks; she has known all along, of course, but today, right now, there is more to the meaning than she’s ever realized—more implications and nuances and unspoken secrets than she could ever hope to count. 

_Do you miss her?_ she wants to ask, heart bursting, and _When is the last time you saw her?_

And then a truly terrifying thought:

It happens so swiftly that Marinette cannot even begin to truly piece it all together, not before she feels the lump returning to her throat with frightening strength. _It’s been my choice to keep our identities hidden all these years… It’s my decision that’s forcing us to stay hidden right now, that’s keeping us from finding the others and making things right, so we can purify this stupid akuma._

_What else is my fault?_ Marinette wonders. _It’s been three years… how much longer has it been since you last worked with Ladybug’s previous Chosen? Were they braver, more open?_

_Am I the one who’s keeping you apart?_

“Plagg…” Marinette begins.

He faceplants into the covers, and Marinetti’s heart shoots up in alarm… until Plagg releases a sound of total contentment.

“Sooooooooooooofftt!”

“Um?”

“Tell me,” Plagg nuzzles the handmade mattress, and purrs . “What is the thread count!”

“Um… two hundred and fifty? I think?”

“Mm. I can survive. I have managed with burlap before,” Plagg muses, and Marinette doesn’t understand. “Never again,” he shudders.

“So… you wouldn’t mind if I made you one?”

“Mind!” Plagg protests. “ _Mind!_ ” He makes such a loud noise that the force of it actually knocks him over, onto Tikki’s bed. “ _Mind!_ ”

The corners of Marinette’s mouth turns up. “You are so dramatic.”

“I, my dear,” says Plagg, “am a _cat_.”

Tikki always told her that she, herself, wasn’t _actually_ a ladybug, or the entirety of the Good Luck phenomenon itself, but some sort of combination of the two—something more, something less, something different. So. Technically-speaking, Plagg isn’t exactly strictly a feline, even though he certainly acts like one, and then some, and Marinette would like to kindly point this out. 

But.

You don’t _win_ arguments against cats.

So Marinette goes to her fabric supply instead, and watches with something that feels dangerously close to fondness as he frolics in a soft ocean of bright lime green. 

 

//

 

“You’re telling me that you’ve been around for practically _forever_ and you have never played MORTAL COMBAT?”

 

//

 

“Marinette?” calls her dad. “Are you all right up here?”

When she looks back to the trapdoor, she knows she must seem quite a sight.

Pajamas. Two empty trays of bakery samples. A half-finished bowl of popcorn. Bright green fabric everywhere. ( _A two-player game of Mortal Combat paused on her screen_.)

Marinette strains a smile.

“Your mother said that you ate dinner upstairs to get some work done. Working on a new project? That’s a very unique shade of green, I don’t think I’ve seen you use that particular… one… be… fore...” Her dad sniffs the air. Makes a face, then hides it. Hides it. “Dear,” he asks, slowly. “What… is that smell?”

“I’m… experimenting with scents,” Marinette carefully explains. “Like what I did for Jagged Stone’s album.”

He sniffs again. “Ah. And… what… smell, exactly, are you looking for?”

Marinette winces.

“Um. Camembert.”

Her father offers her a dutiful, fatherly grin. His left eyes seems to be twitching. 

“Ah. Yes. You’ve… you’ve really got it, my dear.” Then: “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re enjoying your unlucky day off from school. Don’t forget to do some studying.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she promises, and then her father nods a grin at her, despite the fact that she can actually see the desperation to leave written clearly on his face.

“That’s a good… yes. Well done,” he tells her, and then the trapdoor closes so quickly that she can barely see the thumbs-up he tries to give her on the way out.

“Your father is very supportive,” Plagg comments, appearing out of nowhere. Marinette blinks at him. “That is the second time today that he has checked in.” 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Well, this is actually pretty sparse, given his usual record,” she comments, and breathes out an affectionate little laugh. “My mom gave him a talk a little while back about how I’m growing up and I ‘ _need more space_ ’ _.”_ She laughs again, and the fondness spills over. “It used to annoy me, and sometimes it still does, but they’re both much better about it now. Or maybe I’ve just grown used to all the thoughtfulness now.”

Plagg looks pretty thoughtful, himself.

“Are you still hungry?” Marinette wonders, but she’s already passing him another piece of popcorn. This one has a more buttery taste, which is something she’s discovered that he especially likes. She needs to make a note of all of his favorite flavors, so she can have a stash ready for him if he ever—

_Stop, Marinette._

Well, she considers, ignoring the sting of disappointment. _I can make a list for Chat to keep, at least_. 

“I am always hungry,” he reminds her, rather plainly, and then he gratefully pops the piece in his mouth. He still looks deeply lost in thought. 

“Hm,” Marinette hums, and then pushes the bowl closer to his tiny body, which is seated atop his controller. “All right, then.”

She doesn’t push, even though she would like to. (Maybe she could push a _little_ , but only later.)

_Maybe tomorrow_ , she almost thinks, and purposefully drops the thought before it can take root. The choppy music resumes, and satisfying sounds of grunting and pain emit from the speakers, and for once, Marinette just lets herself play.

“These fighting techniques are so off,” Plagg criticizes, but continues to jab at his buttons furiously anyway. “No one throws an uppercut like that!”

“I know,” Marinette mutters, eyes focused on the screen. “Wait ’til you see the flips. I know this is fantasy, and I know _we’re_ technically using magic, but this…”

“And look at that staff work! No proper technique at _all!_ ”

“Wait. Isn’t it?” Marinette questions, perplexed. “That’s how Chat uses it.”

“Yes, but the boy has never been trained!” Plagg laments. “He still uses it as if he were carrying a sword, but it isn’t _meant_ for fencing!”

Plagg continues, but Marinette isn’t listening.

Her stomach has dropped cold. 

It takes a great deal of effort to keep her voice level. “Couldn’t you teach him properly?” she asks, willing her voice not to shake. “He has to learn sometime, doesn’t he?”

“Bah! If only.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Marinette pushes forward, but inside her heart is racing. _Fencing_ , she thinks. It echoes in her mind, over and over and over, battling with the sound of the blood rushing to her ears. She almost fumbles with the buttons, but she wills herself to play it cool. “You don’t have to use his actual staff to do a demonstration. I mean… All you’d need is a toothpick.”

“Such insolence,” Plagg scolds, but he doesn’t sound _too_ put out. “I have more strength than that!”

“Mmhm.”

Plagg is silent again, which makes the pounding in her head all the louder. _Fencing_ , she thinks again. _He’s familiar with using a sword…_ But how many places were there in Paris that promoted the sport? Hundreds, probably. _He could be anywhere_.

Which is the point.

Marinette diligently plays her game, focusing intently on her kill. Plagg bemoans his Bad Luck, which he himself finds very amusing, and which starts an argument about being the Source of Bad Luck versus _having_ Bad Luck or _bestowing_ and _using_ Bad Luck as a weapon or a tool or a prank, and for a while Marinette is actually genuinely distracted from the idea of giving up on her Very Responsible and Mature Plan of Keeping Their Identities Hidden Completely from One Another, and _Not_ Low-key Asking Adrien About Different Fencing Facilities in Paris, until Plagg clutches at his stomach, and makes a sudden noise, like he’s finally eaten too much candy.

Her chest seizes.

Or the Transposer is trying again.

“Plagg,” Marinette urges, because something has occurred to her, right now, and it feels like the beginnings of a plan. “Plagg—can you still feel it?”

He grimaces, the poor thing. “Like a bad wedge of cheese,” he complains, then pauses. “Never mind. There is no such thing.”

“ _Plagg_ ,” Marinette scolds. “Focus! I need you to think—can you feel where the tugging is coming from?”

The kwami’s eyes widen.

“Huh,” he comments, strained. “What do you know…”

Marinette smirks.

 

//

 


End file.
